WASHINGTON (AP) – COVID -19 cases are rising in the United States – and could worsen in the coming months, federal health officials warned Wednesday, urging the areas hardest hit to consider the response to internal masks.
COVID-19 Infections and Hospitalization Growth Points submit the majority of the nation to guidelines released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calling for precautionary measures for masks and other infections. .
Currently, approximately one-third of the U.S. population lives in areas considered higher risk, mainly in the Northeast and Midwest. These are places where people should consider wearing a mask indoors, but Americans need to be careful elsewhere, officials said.
“The past increase in infections, in several waves of infection, has shown that it is traveling around the country,” said CDC director Dr. Rochelle Valensky to White House reporters.
For a growing number of areas, “we urge local leaders to encourage the use of prevention techniques such as face masks in an enclosed environment and to increase access to testing and treatment,” he said. niya.
However, officials were wary of making specific predictions and said how severe the pandemic would be would depend on several factors, including how past infections were protected from new variants.
Last week, White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jah In an interview with the Associated Press, the United States will be increasingly vulnerable to the coronavirus this fall and winter if Congress does not quickly approve new funding for more vaccines and treatments.
Jham warned that without additional funding from Congress, the virus would cause “unnecessary loss of life” in the fall and winter, when the United States runs out of treatment.
He added that the United States is already lagging behind other countries in terms of delivery of the next generation of COVID-19 vaccines, and said the domestic production base of home tests has already collapsed as demand declines.
Jaham said domestic test makers have begun closing lines and laying off workers, and in the coming weeks they will start selling equipment and prepare to completely stop manufacturing if the U.S. government doesn’t money to buy. other tests, such as hundreds of trials. He sent millions for free to families asking this year.
This will leave the U.S. relying on other countries to test supplies, threatening to increase the deficit when it threatens, Jham warned. An estimated 8.5 million families have ordered the final batch of 8 free trials since the order opened on Monday, Jham added.
2 and a half years now the pandemic. And the United States saw, depending on how you count it, five waves of COVID-19 during this time, a subsequent wave caused by mutational versions of the corovirus. The fifth wave occurred mainly in December and January, due to the Omicron variant.
The Omicron version is distributed more easily than previous versions.
Some experts fear that the country is now seeing signs of a sixth wave led by an omicron sub-variant. On Wednesday, Valensky noted a steady increase in COVID-19 cases over the past five weeks, including a 26% increase nationwide last week.
Hospitals also rose, up 19% last week, even though they were lower than the omicron surge, he said.
In late February, as this wave subsided, the CDC released a new set of measures for communities where the strength of COVID-19 is declining, focusing less on positive test results and more on whether what is happening in hospitals.
Valensky said more than 32% of the country currently lives in a region with a moderate to high level of COVID-19 community, including more than 9% at the highest level where the CDC recommends wearing masks. etc.
An additional 8% of Americans live in the country at the average or high level of the COVID-19 community last week.
Officials said they were concerned that weakening immunity and easing mitigation measures could contribute to the continued rise of infections and diseases across the country. They encouraged people, especially the elderly, to receive boosters.
Some health experts said the government needs to take clearer and bolder measures.
The CDC’s community -wide guidelines create confusion for the public and don’t provide a clear picture of how well the virus is transmitted to the community, Drs. Lakshmi Ganapati, an infectious disease specialist at Harvard University.
When government officials make recommendations but don’t set policies, “Ultimately, it’s up to each individual to choose and choose the public health that benefits them. But that’s not what works.” When it comes to stopping. in hospitalization and even in mortality, all of these interventions work best when people are together, ”he said.
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Stobb reported this from New York.
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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science receives support from Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. AP is solely responsible for all content.
Source: Huffpost
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.